MPs vet University, TVET PS nominees

The Parliamentary Committee on Education on Thursday vetted two Ministry of Education Permanent Secretary nominees as they sought to establish their suitability fore the positions amid challenges facing the Education sector.

The two, Dr Julius Jwan, PS nominee for Technical and Vocational Education and Ambassador Simon Nabukwesi, PS nominee for University Education and Research, defended themselves and pledged to work with stakeholders to better the Education system.

Dr Jwan promised to use his experience at the Kenya institute Curriculum Development (KICD) to revitalise the TVET.

Among the challenges in the TVET sector is low enrollment in newly established institutions and overcrowding in the old technical institutions.

Dr Jwan said he will also be keen to spearhead the Competency Based Education and Training (CBET) which is currently been rolled out in TVET institutions.

“As the PS in charge of TVET, I will seek to increase the student enrollment and  work on implementation of the new curriculum,” he said.

Yearly, hundreds of students miss admission.

This year, the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) announced that they will place 350,000 from the 563,479 students who scored between C and E in the 2019 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE).

Dr Jwan was nominated by President Uhuru Kenyatta to replace Dr Kevit Desai, who was moved to be the PS East African Community.

Ambassador Simon Nabukwesi said he will use his expertise as a trained teacher and global networks to streamline the university education.

He said as the PS in charge of the higher education sector, he will major in public private partnership to address the financial constraints faced by universities and link universities with the industry as a way to reducing the high rate of unemployment in the country.

Among the challenges facing public universities are budgetary Constraints on the reduced state capitation, drilling Module two incomes and increasing demands.

Other challenges include governance and structural issues and inadequacies in oversight functions of council in line with the Universities Act, and piecemeal and uncoordinated policy and legislative reforms that in turn impinge statutory functions of university councils.

“Limited funding being the greatest challenge in universities is one area that I will be focusing to ensure that we look for innovative ways to run the institutions,” he said.

While working as ambassador, Nabukwesi said he helped Kenyan universities partner with global universities in research.

Parliamentary Committee on Education chair Julius Melly said they will write a report on the interviews and present it to the President.